Adrian Smith is fundraising to make a film on the U.S. fleet sunk in 1946 by atom bomb testing.

The Baker explosion was part of a nuclear weapon test by the United States military at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, on July 25, 1946. (Department of Defense/Contributed Photo)

Adrian Smith is raising money through the website Kickstarter to travel to the Bikini Atoll and film a documentary on the ships that were sunk by an A-bomb. He keeps his diving gear in his garage. (LARRY STEAGALL / KITSAP SUN)

Diver Adrian Smith is raising money to travel to the Bikini Atoll and film an underwater documentary on ships that were sunk by an A-bomb. He is going to use 3 small waterproof digital GoPro cameras. (LARRY STEAGALL / KITSAP SUN)

PORT ORCHARD — The Navy parked 95 ships in Bikini Atoll lagoon to see whether they’d survive a nuclear explosion. Many didn’t, and since 1946 those have been rusting away on the Pacific Ocean floor.

A Port Orchard SCUBA diver wants to videotape their remains and produce a documentary film explaining their role in the dawning nuclear age. Adrian Smith calls Bikini Atoll the Holy Grail of Pacific wreck diving, particularly for him, a student of World War II.

“When it became apparent to me what horrible condition these wrecks are in, it really started to sink in that somebody had to do something about it,” he said.

Smith, 46, created a project to preserve the history of the Bikini Atoll wrecks and placed it on Kickstarter, a website where money can be raised for creative ventures via crowd funding. To proceed, he needs $27,000 in pledges within a month, ending April 12.

“Able” and “Baker” were the fourth and fifth atomic bombs ever detonated, following the Trinity test and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Operation Crossroads, the 176 natives of Bikini Island were moved to another atoll. On July 1, 1946, a B-29 Superfortress dropped the 23-kiloton bomb “Able” that detonated 520 feet above the fleet. Five ships sank and 14 were seriously damaged, mostly from the bomb’s air-pressure shock wave.

Twenty-five days later, for “Baker,” the same size bomb was suspended beneath a landing craft, 90 feet down in 180 feet of water. Ten ships were sunk, including the landing craft, which vaporized. All that stayed afloat within 1,000 yards of the blast were seriously damaged from water pressure. The greatest difference between the two tests was radioactive contamination of all the ships by Baker. Only nine could be decontaminated and sold for scrap. The rest were sunk.

The ships now have just background levels of radiation, but the atoll is still uninhabitable.

Nobody has documented the vessels in their entirety or placed them in historical context, Smith says.

“The only really solid artifacts from the dawn of the atomic age have been forgotten,” he said. “Most people don’t even know what Bikini Atoll is, let alone its significance on the world.”

Most ships are deep, in as much as 185 feet of water. Though Smith has dived and taught SCUBA for nearly 25 years, he’ll have to get special training and equipment to spend the necessary time filming at that depth. That would be expensive, right behind the cost to get there.

There’s only one diving outfit, based on Kwajalein Atoll, about a day’s sail away from the wrecks. The firm only offers about a dozen trips per summer. Smith’s expedition is scheduled for August 2014 with the documentary to be completed by November 2014.

Smith filmed Truk Lagoon shipwrecks in 2004 when he and his wife were stationed in Japan. During World War II, the lagoon was Japan’s main base in the South Pacific. On Feb. 17 and 18, 1944, the U.S. launched a surprise attack and sank 40 ships. Smith took 50 hours of film in a week and distilled it into an hourlong video.

Funding projects through Kickstarter has become popular. Smith was convinced to go that route after one film funded that way won an Academy Award in February and two others received nominations.

“I knew I couldn’t fund this project myself in its totality,” he said. “I hoped there’d be enough people out there with an interest to make a go of it and share it.”

On Friday, with 20 days to go, 104 backers had promised $10,301 of the needed $27,000.

People can’t invest in Kickstarter projects to make money. They can only back projects in exchange for a reward or one-of-a-kind experience, like a personal note of thanks, custom T-shirts, dinner with an author, or initial production run of the product. If the project doesn’t reach its goal, no money is exchanged.

Athena Docter is among the supporters. The Navy electrician’s mate, who received her SCUBA certification through Smith, said her appreciation for the country and Navy history swelled during her chief petty officer induction last year.

“I’d heard of Bikini Atoll and that we tested some bombs there, but I didn’t know we tested them on our own vessels, some of the vessels that played such a big part in World War II,” said Docter, of Port Orchard. “The other reason why I’m so forceful in backing this is the fact they’ve been there so many years and even in the last five or 10 years they’re disappearing very, very fast. If I can’t go there, I’d like somebody else to go and document them before they’re gone.”

As part of the project, Smith is finding and interviewing sailors who served on the ships.